Nurses and health-care workers in Ontario hospitals will receive an 11 per cent wage increase over the next two years after striking a new deal in ongoing contract negotiations.
The Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) announced the arbitration decision on Thursday, marking the most significant wage increases for its 65,000-plus hospital-sector registered nurses (RNs) and health-care professionals in decades.
The decision provides average wage increases of 11 per cent over two years. The ONA says when this wage increase is added to two additional recent arbitration decisions, Ontario hospital RNs and health-care professionals will receive wage increases that average 16 per cent from March 31, 2023 to April 1, 2024. This amounts to an average hourly wage increase of approximately $5 to $7.
The wage negotiations come after the overturn of Bill 124, legislation passed in 2019 by Premier Ford’s government that capped health care workers’ wages at one per cent total compensation for each of three years. However, in Nov. 2022 the bill was overturned by Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice for being unconstitutional.
Nurses and government critics blamed the bill for staffing issues and plummeting retention rates against a backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The evidence referred to in this award unambiguously establishes that there are historic numbers of vacancies…compensation is a, if not the, key driver in attracting employees,” Arbitrator William Kaplan wrote in his decision.
"ONA members have been organizing across the province to push for better wages to improve staffing & patient care. This time, we were heard.”
— Ontario Nurses' Association (@ontarionurses) July 20, 2023
Read our full release about the decision from arbitrator Kaplan on the new hospital central collective agreement: https://t.co/bKVRwFf5ZH pic.twitter.com/tNP8z8WO6V
Prior negotiations between the ONA and the Ontario Hospital Association over wages, failed to render a deal.
ONA members have been pushing for better wages for a long time, citing improvements to patient care and staffing as its top priorities. “This time, we were heard,” ONA President Erin Ariss, RN, said in a statement.
Securing fair wages is the first step in protecting the livelihoods of nurses and the structural integrity of the Ontario health care system, the ONA argues.
“Arbitrator Kaplan explicitly recognizes that improving wages is among the best ways to recruit and retain desperately needed nurses and begin to fix the nursing shortage,” Ariss said.
Moreover, Kaplan has agreed to provide “dedicated isolation pay,” which guarantees salaries are paid in the event of exposure to “communicable diseases,” including COVID-19, in recognition that health-care workers are at heightened risk of infection.
Ariss praised the ONA’s “extraordinary bargaining team,” heralding its members’ heroic efforts to lobby for better wages, and improved patient care.
“The historic engagement of hospital nurses across the province in recent months represents a new era for the profession,” she said.
